Jonathan Jones on art + Paris holidays | The Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog+travel/paris
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Shocked by Paul McCarthy's butt plug? You obviously haven't seen his phallic Pinocchiohttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/oct/20/paul-mccarthy-paris-tree-sculpture-butt-plug-controversy
<p>McCarthy’s controversial sculpture, Tree, has been vandalised in Place Vendrome – and the artist assaulted. Why are Parisians being so prudish? This is nowhere near his scandalous best</p><p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/20/paul-mccarthy-butt-plug-sculpture-paris-rightwing-backlash">Paul McCarthy ‘butt plug’ sculpture in Paris provokes rightwing backlash</a></p><p>Anality is in the eye of the beholder. An inflatable sculpture by <a href="http://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/20/paul-mccarthy/images-clips/">American artist Paul McCarthy</a> has been <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/18/sex-toy-sculpture-paris-vandalised">vandalised – and the artist himself assaulted – after a flurry of outrage in Paris</a> over a sculpture that is said to resemble a type of sex toy known, I am informed, as a butt plug.</p><p>I feel old fashioned that I had to be told that. The work is called Tree, and if I didn’t know about the accusation that it looks like a sex toy, I would probably have taken the title at face value. Well, perhaps not entirely. The chances of McCarthy erecting anything as innocent as a tree seem slight when you consider this surrealist’s oeuvre.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/oct/20/paul-mccarthy-paris-tree-sculpture-butt-plug-controversy">Continue reading...</a>SculptureArtArt and designPaul McCarthyParis holidaysCultureMon, 20 Oct 2014 12:22:03 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/oct/20/paul-mccarthy-paris-tree-sculpture-butt-plug-controversyPhotograph: Chesnot/Getty ImagesA flurry of outrage … Paul McCarthy's Tree, before it was deflated by vandals. Photograph: Chesnot/Getty ImagesPhotograph: Chesnot/Getty ImagesA flurry of outrage … Paul McCarthy's Tree, before it was deflated by vandals. Photograph: Chesnot/Getty ImagesJonathan Jones2014-10-20T12:22:03ZRevel in the magic of Islamic arthttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2012/sep/13/revel-in-magic-islamic-art
The Louvre's new display of Islamic art promises to be a magical sensory experience. Let's step back from the headlines and celebrate the rich history of art inspired by Islam<p>As relations between Islam and the west <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2012/sep/13/libya-attack-us-ambassador-aftermath-live" title="">once again become a focus of tension</a>, the Louvre museum in Paris is about to open a permanent exhibit that celebrates Islamic art. The new Islamic galleries at the <a href="http://www.louvre.fr/en" title="">Louvre</a> open on 22 September. They offer a chance to step back from <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/12/obama-vows-justice-libya-attack" title="">today's headlines</a> and consider the beauty and originality of the art inspired by this religion.</p><p>The Louvre promises visitors to its new galleries "<a href="http://www.louvre.fr/en/opening-new-department-islamic-art" title="">a veritable sensory voyage of discovery</a> into its Islamic collection." That brings back memories. Islamic art and architecture have often been experienced by white Europeans as a kind of sensory rush. The French critic Roland Barthes evokes this romantic mood in his book <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/26/roland-barthes-camera-lucida-rereading" title="">Camera Lucida</a> when he contemplates a 19th-century photograph of the Moorish palace the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, and sighs: "I want to live there!"</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2012/sep/13/revel-in-magic-islamic-art">Continue reading...</a>IslamParis holidaysArt and designCultureArtHeritageThu, 13 Sep 2012 13:49:02 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2012/sep/13/revel-in-magic-islamic-artPhotograph: Lebrecht Music And Arts Photo Li/AlamyWalking on a cloud … view of the Alhambra, Granada. Photograph:AlamyPhotograph: Lebrecht Music And Arts Photo Li/AlamyWalking on a cloud … view of the Alhambra, Granada. Photograph:AlamyJonathan Jones2012-09-13T13:49:02ZToulouse-Lautrec and the real story of the Moulin Rougehttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2011/aug/17/toulouse-lautrec-moulin-rouge-paintings
Nowhere is the sad, strange seediness of 1890s Montmartre more sharply portrayed than in Toulouse-Lautrec's supercharged paintings – as an exhibition at the Courtauld shows<p>The <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/h2/h2_32.88.12.jpg" title="">Moulin Rouge</a>, a dance hall in late 19th-century Paris, has been depicted in more than one film. I feel compelled to add "and sensationalised". But looking at the way the nightclub's famous habitué <a href="http://www.toulouse-lautrec-foundation.org/" title="">Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec</a> portrayed the fin-de-siècle denizens of nocturnal Montmartre, it's clear that film-makers have been sanitising the story. Neither <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0203009/" title="">Baz Luhrmann</a> nor <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044926/" title="">John Huston</a> came anywhere near the true wildness and strangeness of the real Moulin Rouge.</p><p>You can see the original, raw reality of Toulouse-Lautrec's Moulin Rouge in <a href="http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/gallery/exhibitions/2011/Lautrec.shtml" title="">an exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery</a>, which closes on 18 September 2011. Summer visitors to London should put it on their itinerary, especially as the £6 admission also gets you into this gallery's small-but-exquisite collection of artistic masterpieces, which includes Manet's highly relevant <a href="http://www.poster.net/manet-edouard/manet-edouard-bar-in-folies-bergere-2601747.jpg" title="">A Bar at the Folies-Bergere</a>.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2011/aug/17/toulouse-lautrec-moulin-rouge-paintings">Continue reading...</a>PaintingPostersArtDesignExhibitionsArt and designCultureParis holidaysWed, 17 Aug 2011 11:28:54 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2011/aug/17/toulouse-lautrec-moulin-rouge-paintingsPhotograph: Robert Hashimoto/The Art Institute of Chicago, Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial CollectionTrue colours ... Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's At the Moulin Rouge (1892-93). Photograph: Robert Hashimoto/The Art Institute of ChicagoPhotograph: Robert Hashimoto/The Art Institute of Chicago, Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial CollectionTrue colours ... Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's At the Moulin Rouge (1892-93). Photograph: Robert Hashimoto/The Art Institute of ChicagoJonathan Jones2011-08-17T11:28:54ZWhy I love the Louvre's Grande Galeriehttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2010/mar/15/grande-galerie-louvre
Take a stroll through the Louvre's awe-inspiring Grande Galerie and its magnificent history paintings will make you rethink art<p>There are many places on Earth where art lovers feel they have to go. <a href="http://homepage.powerup.com.au/~ancient/museum.htm">Cairo</a> to see the face of King Tut, maybe, or <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2007/jan/09/2">New York's MoMa</a> to see Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. I have no regrets about my pilgrimages to such sites. But I have to confess that the place that makes me more aware than any other of the richness, glory and mystery of art is closer to home (just a Eurostar journey away), and far more complex in its pleasures.</p><p>In the <a href="http://www.pbase.com/mamako/image/46601388">Grande Galerie of the Louvre</a> you walk along an immense hall – divided in two by a central tribune – past a cavalcade of French history paintings. What is a history painting? Well, the best way to find out is to visit this part of France's national museum. Here are paintings, many of them on a staggering scale, of great and noble, shocking and terrifying events. Survivors of a shipwreck lose their last shreds of hope as gargantuan waves bear down on their loosely slung together vessel in <a href="http://artandperception.com/2007/10/gericaults-the-raft-of-the-medusa-by-tree.html">Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa</a>. Napoleon gives succour to the dying in <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic-art/246595/111776/Napoleon-on-the-Battlefield-at-Eylau-February-1807-oil-painting">Baron Gros's Battlefield of Eylau</a>. As the heroic Spartans prepare to lay down their lives, their leader sits brooding alone, staring right at us, in <a href="http://www.abcgallery.com/D/david/david33.html">David's great Leonidas at Thermopylae</a>.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2010/mar/15/grande-galerie-louvre">Continue reading...</a>ArtArt and designMuseumsCultureFranceParis holidaysEuropeMon, 15 Mar 2010 12:32:55 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2010/mar/15/grande-galerie-louvrePhotograph: Graham Turner/GuardianWorth the queue … The Louvre. Photograph: Graham TurnerPhotograph: Graham Turner/GuardianWorth the queue … The Louvre. Photograph: Graham TurnerJonathan Jones2010-03-15T12:32:55Z